Week 7 - Cobb, Ch. 7 (Sin)

Popular culture is in agreement that something is wrong with the human condition. Puritans attempted the utopian ideal but obviously failed. Belief that God punishes when we fall short of moral ideal is the "jeremiad" and is ingrained in American consciousness. We hunger for a different world because we feel it is always short of "Eden." This leads to conflict and sin. Humanity's abuse of technology is seen in some fiction as a "second fall" according to the Gothic genre. Four features of gothic stories very interesting. Gothic plots often have sin originate from "without."